LeBron James believes the notion that he needs to monitor his minutes as a 33-year-old veteran entering his 16th NBA season is largely overstated.

"I'm always fresh," James said following Los Angeles Lakers shootaround on Thursday, according to ESPN's Dave McMenamin. "All my coaches want to figure out a way of how to lessen my minutes. I keep telling them I'm strong enough to play (the) most minutes, but they won't listen to me, so it's OK. I like it."

James led the Association in minutes played last season with the Cleveland Cavaliers by averaging 36.9 while playing in all 82 games for the first time in his career. He also went to The Finals for an eighth straight year, putting even more mileage on his body.

Lakers head coach Luke Walton said he'll be keeping tabs on James' playing time to his preserve the All-Star forward for the long haul, but that doesn't mean he'll shy away from giving him plenty of court time.

"LeBron will play a lot of minutes, yes," Walton said. "It will be a consistent theme for us this year."

Walton added: "I told him ... that his legs seem to be getting younger as training camp goes on. It normally works the other way. But he's jumping higher, he's moving quicker the more we get out there and play. So it's like I said - there's one game tonight. We're obviously excited to be playing regular-season games now, but he looks good."

The Lakers will open the 2018-19 campaign at Moda Center on Thursday night against the Portland Trail Blazers.